


A Black Mesa Christmas

by BlueDreams



Category: Half-Life
Genre: Bonding, Christmas, Friendship, Gen, Gordon's not technically silent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 01:45:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17214683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueDreams/pseuds/BlueDreams
Summary: Gordon Freeman is an odd, quiet man who wants to make sure his newfound friend gets an appropriate holiday gift





	A Black Mesa Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Made originally as part of a Secret Santa HL thing on Tumblr, and I figured it might do some good to put it on a site meant for writing

Gordon’s indifference to the cold environment and robotic announcements of Black Mesa was offset by his astonishment toward the experiments and his generally amiable colleagues. Not so much the other scientists, however, where they lost their patience for Gordon’s active and odd tendencies. He instead managed to have a better time talking with the security guards, who appreciated his benignly chaotic behavior for killing the boredom and being less uptight than the researchers. 

Even so, there was little he could talk to them about. Their knowledge of physics was varied, but most tended to have only a high school level of understanding. Gordon’s own shyness to starting casual conversations made that gap of interests daunting to him.  
During one of his breaks, he was about to go his locker when he saw someone’s open. It was from a B. Calhoun, a security guard he had met who mentioned wanting a beer in ear-shot of the administrator. While he’d feel bad peeping at private belongings, his curiosity tempted him to go for a quick one second look. His eyes widened when he saw a collection of books that had conspiracy theories about aliens living on Earth. He must be into science fiction! That’s something they could bond over!

Despite his stilted way of talking, Gordon was clearly trying to befriend Calhoun, who had introduced himself as Barney. He was more confident in speaking despite his odd interests, and he was able to chat it up with Gordon over aliens, which would then transform into more mundane talks about their backgrounds and other hobbies.

Barney once talked about growing up as a latch-key kid, and he would use his freedom to roam the neighborhood for adventures and finding weird things from obscure music records to substances only adults knew about. During one of these times, Barney said he found a video cassette that proved aliens were out there. The footage was a very grainy recording of a small, lanky humanoid roaming a wooded hill. There was no music and the only sounds were the sound of leaves being crumbled under its feet. Gordon was suspicious of this but played along. He could not deny either that such a visual would be burned into his own memory if he saw it at a young age.

“Here’s the thing, Gordon,” Barney looked at him with serious conviction. “I can’t tell for sure if that was an incredibly weird looking guy in a suit. But that’s an awful lot of good effects to waste on a student film.”

Gordon tried to say something but ended up making an expression of uncertainty. 

“Either way, I know you probably think I’m gullible ‘cause I don’t have a PhD or anything fancy.” Gordon shook his head quickly in a neurotic display of sympathy. “Just wanted to tell you that since you don’t look like you’d shrug off that kind of stuff. Hell, I don’t think I told anyone else about that.”

Gordon smiled and reassured him that his secret was safe with them.

“Good,” Barney replied laconically. “And if I ever do find that thing again, you bet your ass I’m gonna catch him. I’ve practiced karate every day of my life.” Barney prepared some stock martial arts movements as Gordon reflexively put his hand to cover his face. Gordon lowered his hand and said that he’d pay Barney a beer if the alien was ever found, to which Barney grinned with acceptance and shook his hand.

As the holiday season was approaching, Gordon had anxiety over what to gift his new best buddy. He knew Barney liked to talk about “the truth”, whatever that meant. Aliens were another thing, but he was pretty sure aliens would be too hard to find. _Think Gordon, think!_

Doing what any other man would do in a tricky situation, he crawled into the facility’s air-vents to peek through the other rooms to get ideas. The other personnel were initially frightened by this rat-like human prowling above them and waiting to fall at any time, but they grew used to it after a few weeks. He could not find anything sticking out to him, however, only finding scientists in Santa hats and some holiday decorations scattered across the hydraulic robots and experimental teleporters.

Overhead he could hear and then see several scientists bicker over whether they could locate Santa Claus in another dimension and bring him here. All while wearing elf and reindeer clothing. Gordon tried to stifle his laughing to remain being stealthy, as though the metallic echoes of his hands and knees were silent. He stopped briefly after a surprise announcement by the automatic VOX that said **“Ho. Ho. Ho. Merry. Christmas.”**

Gordon’s ideas were not getting anywhere, and his mind was stuck in a rut. He was not good at creating gifts, but he did not want to buy a generic gift to a new friend. He was growing more impatient and disappointed in himself for not knowing what to do, thinking he was taking the friendship for granted. 

In the moment of frustration, he thought back to the story Barney talked about with the weird tape. If there was a way to use that as a gift, Gordon thought, he would be giving a great Christmas present. But figuring how to turn something like that into a gift would be tricky. He did not want to pretend to see the alien as he was a poor liar, and he was not good at making costumes or directing movies. 

While lost n thought, he heard another sudden sound. Instead of the VOX, however, it was the teleporter he could see behind the air vent’s bars. The orange ethereal light had shot out something unusual. A football-sized creature with stubby legs and much longer forelegs. It had no features on its surface other than a light brown skin. It lunged out, exposing a toothy hole on its underside, which was only stopped by the glass cage containing it. 

Gordon was awe-struck at this, and we was not sure if this was a real honest-to-God alien or an advanced machine prop. Either way, he thought that showing this to Barney would be a fantastic gift. A bizarre creature like this had to be what the holidays were for! But Gordon had to be careful. Security personnel were not allowed to see the experiments, and he did not have a camera on him. 

He traversed his way back to Barney to tell him about the newfound organism. Barney was surprisingly very skeptical, in contrast to how Gordon thought he would react. Even with his frantic gesturing, Gordon couldn’t convince him. 

“Hell, Gordon, you know I’m not even supposed to be near the scientists. That’s just asking for a dent in my paycheck.” Gordon put his finger on his chin and pondered how to convince him without too many risks. Grinning, Gordon pointed to the ventilation shaft and explained how to see the creature without rousing suspicion.

“Uh-uh. Gordon. That thing shouldn’t even hold one person. There is no way I’m going to be huddled in there just to see an alien.

Moments later, Barney found himself following Gordon through the air vents. His frown aside, Barney followed Gordon despite his pessimism. Gordon’s own enthusiastic smile, like a kid opening up a large present, was enough to guile him. Along the way, Barney talked about what Gordon’s background was like to pass the time. 

Gordon was hesitant, and his mood lowered in response, causing Barney to change the subject. Gordon conceded anyway to explain. Gordon said his childhood was not rough and he did grow up in a loving family, but that a lot of times during school were full of isolation because of his eccentric behavior. He resumed by saying he didn’t have many close friends, and that was why he didn’t want to disappoint Barney.

“Sorry to hear that, buddy. But as far as friends go, you found one of the best, so it’ll take more than a few weird things like… whatever we’re doing now… to stop that.”

Gordon nodded softly and went on as he neared the part that was overhead of the creature, which he would describe in vague terms about its size and legs. Barney was not convinced, but he enjoyed the novel way he was travelling as they talked. Gordon peeked through the bars to get a better look at the strange animal, but he found an empty glass cage in its place.

His voice was strained, and he struggled to find any words, instead being baffled and saying that he swore he saw the alien in that spot. He started to ramble about how maybe a scientist took it away, or that maybe it escaped, which only increased his fear. He was holding onto his hair and scratching his head out of confusion until Barney put his hand on his shoulder.

“Woah hang on there. Look, I don’t know if you were pulling my leg or if you really saw something, but it’s not worth having a breakdown over.” Gordon slowed his breathing and looked back at Barney. “This was a hell of an adventure anyway, and it was just fun going through this weird maze. You could hear everyone talking about science stuff that doesn’t matter.” Gordon nodded and gave a bit of a smile after that pun Barney made, whether he realized it or not.

“Honestly, I don’t even celebrate Christmas that much. Too much focus on commercialized crap.” This prodded Gordon to ask what he usually celebrated on this holiday season.

“Festivus!”

Gordon stared at him with a stoic look before cracking up, his sudden giddy laughter echoing through the halls and startling all the scientists. Barney became confused and asked what was so funny. After getting no answers from the still-laughing scientist, he shrugged and let Gordon do his thing as he started to smile too.


End file.
